It's Not Like I Like You or Anything
by Smiley612
Summary: Meet Ally: newbie, geek, just trying to make friends in a new school. Meet Austin: jock, wannabe-singer, most popular guy in class. When Austin meets Ally, he makes it his personal mission to torment and admire her until her life feels like an Avril Lavigne song. It doesn't help that they're next-door neighbors, either. [AU - Auslly]


**A/N: Hello, fellow fanfiction readers! I'm Lia, and here we present my ****_first ever A&A multichapter!_**

**I'm more of a House of Anubis author, so I won't be surprised if any of my followers are reading this right now. I haven't given up on HoA — there's a new oneshot coming from me in a few days! But to anyone who's new and doesn't know me, however: I'm Lia, I'm 14, I'm from Long Island, and I suck at writing. I'm also a big fan of Titanic — the ship and the movie — so expect to see references to that in like every chapter. (I'll also probably write "rude and uncouth and presumptuous" 8,000 times within this whole story.)**

**The story you're being presented with now will have 18-20 chapters; and if you know me, you know they can range anywhere from 2 to 9 thousand words, so I'd beware if you don't like reading long chapters. I update EVERY SATURDAY, so this story will end on MARCH 15th, 2014. This time I won't pull a Lost & Found and add 8 chapters, I promise, haha.**

**Every story is rough in its first chapter, so don't judge too quickly! I promise that the next chapters will be more eventful. There's no real point to this fic; it's just an eventual Auslly, HighSchool!AU fic, like any others. I'm big on characterization on progression, so expect to see a lot of that, as well. I'd also like to hear from you guys; did you think I did well, for a first Austin and Ally multichapter? Does it need work? Did you find anything good?**

**I do hope you enjoy this rough first chapter, and know that the second one is coming on November 9th. Have a nice weekend!  
~Lia xx**

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**/o~~~o/**

* * *

The hustle and bustle of the Upper East Side made its way up the building and through Ally Dawson's eleventh-floor window.

It felt strange staring out the window, looking down at the passing multicolored cars down below, honking and releasing fumes into the atmosphere. The Empire State Building was shining blue through the dark August night, making the area around it look like Sally Jackson baked it.

Ally leaned out the window, getting a glimpse of her home; she knew this might be the last time she'd ever see Manhattan. Her dad had to accept a stupid job in stupid Florida; and was forcing Ally to come with him. She'd rather go to Africa with her mom than the land of alligators, extreme summer heat, and DisneyWorld.

She really, truly loved Manhattan; it might have had a bad reputation, but it was home, and home was were your heart is. Ally still had her crochet "I Left My Heart In Manhattan" pillow that she mad when her dad first broke the news to her in July.

True, she may not have had much friends here in the City, but she did have bragging rights. Unfortunately, everyone who _doesn't_ live in the city has somehow been there before, so Ally couldn't brag that she lives there everyone she talked to someone on the Internet. She _did_ see the city everyday.

Her life, currently, felt like some cheap romantic comedy; her dad kept telling her that she'd like Miami, it was hot and pretty and has colorful houses, but Ally, once again, was holding one of her famous grudges.

It might have just been that she was already homesick, even though she hadn't even left.

Sighing, she removed her arms from the windowsill and walked over to where her suitcase was standing. She lifted the handlebar up and dragged the bag out into the sitting room, where her dad was sitting, reading the newspaper.

"Hi," she murmured, slumping onto the couch, the only thing they were leaving in the apartment. She'd miss that old, ripped up couch. "Where's Luna?"

"Who cares?" her dad joked, putting down the newspaper for only a second to look around for the demon cat the pair had inherited. "I'd rather not take her, but you're insisting, so." Her dad, Lester, rolled his eyes, flipping the paper back to the page he was on.

"Well, of course we have to take her!" Ally protested. Lester, in response, held up his hands to stop his daughter from ranting about how she found the cat on a side street, adopted it, but then soon found out that the cat didn't particularly like Lester.

"I know you don't really want to go," Lester said, once he had officially folded up the paper and set it down on the side table. "But this job will really get me going. I promise. And with the music shop that I'm running in my spare time, we'll have extra money. We could even come back to the city during Winter Break!"

Ally's brown eyes gazed into her father's, his reading glasses resting on his nose. "It's different, dad," she commented, pushing herself off the couch to look for Luna. When she leaned down to look under the couch, she continued, "I mean, we'll be living in Florida. And I've done research on Florida; so many elderlies go to live there for retirement, and it's almost as bad as New York in terms of crime."

Lester chuckled when Ally lifted her head out from under the couch. "Honey, you'll like it. I'm sure you will. You'll make tons of great friends and the school you're going to is top-notch - I looked into it, just for you, sweetie."

She grinned as she pushed her knotty hair behind her ear so she could see her father better than before. Luna, the demon cat, suddenly appeared from wherever she was hiding and jumped into Ally's arms; she smiled and stroked the cat's fur as she purred.

"We need to catch the plane soon, honey," Lester said, glancing at the clock on the other side of the room. He folded the paper up and stuffed it into one of the open bags on his side. "We better get going, if you want to eat lunch before we board the plane. I know you get planesick."

"Yeah," she breathed. Ally lead her dad out the room, opening the door for him, but before she followed him out, she took one last glance around her apartment; the apartment she grew up in, where she had taken her first steps, said her first word, had her first kiss with Kyle Callina in.

With her "I Left My Heart In Manhattan" crochet pillow in her carry-on rucksack, she left the empty apartment, mouthing, "Sure. Where?", leaving an old memory and making room for a new beginning.

* * *

**/o~~~o/**

* * *

It was a good thing that they had eaten lunch before they boarded the plane, because when she stepped into the Orlando airport, Ally was certainly feeling nauseous.

"What's the name of the town we're going to again?" Ally wondered, coming out of the bathroom in the airport. She sat down holding her stomach next to a statue of Snow White; Lester, without her knowing, whipped out his camera phone and snapped a picture for use on a rainy day.

"Sebastian," he answered absent-mindedly, taking the map of Orlando out of his pocket and inspecting the route they would have to take to their new home.

"I had a kid named Sebastian in one of my classes," Ally muttered uselessly, but loud enough for Lester to hear. He shot her an apologetic look, knowing how hard it must be for someone to move two thousand miles away from home, even though she barely had any friends. "He was such a fake."

"How so?" Lester wondered, helping Ally out of the seat next to Snow White. They began to walk to the trolley, which would take them to the entrance to the airport.

"Well, for one thing, when we were eleven, he said he tazed a cop," she told him, making Lester guffaw with laughter. Ally started to hold up fingers to keep a tally of every lie he'd ever told. "He said he'd been in eight house fires and almost died in one of them; he'd been in juvy eight times - he seemed to like the number eight - um...I can't think of anything else at the moment, but his stories were just so unbelievable that no one ever believed him." Ally shrugged, taking a pickle from the jar, another thing she had stuffed in her carry-on.

The father and daughter team followed their path by the map out of the airport without another word; Ally was comfortable eating her pickles in silence, wondering what her dad was thinking while wondering what her new life would hold for her in the town of Sebastian.

She'd seen enough soap operas and romantic comedies to know that moving in was nothing like the television told her it was. After the two-hour drive to Sebastian, a town on the eastern tip of Florida, it was strange seeing all the different colored houses and palm trees. All you ever saw in New York was black and brown houses with oak trees out front. Nothing ever differed. People said New York City was the city of dreams, but they also said Titanic was the Ship of Dreams, and look at what happened to _that_.

Maybe New York was a concrete jungle, but dreams weren't made their. Some were, surely, but a lot of dreams died.

Ally had loved music since she was small; any form of it, really. While writing songs was a definite hobby and passion of hers, she'd never once thought of doing anything with her talent. Her life wasn't a television show; a mysterious boy wasn't just going to show up in the middle of her song, steal it, and then end up kissing him a few months later. She was perfectly fine with knowing she could write well; she didn't need the entire world to tell her.

It took two and a half hours to drive there, but after five pit stops and one ice cream trip, they pulled into the driveway of their green house. It was a ranch; a one-story house, no bigger than the houses in the city.

Ally felt the humid Florida air on her face as she opened the door to face the house; it was beautiful, in a way; if you squinted your eyes...and then shut them. She helped her dad unpack all their bags (which was A LOT), and watched the moving van pull in next to them.

Lester waved them over and told Ally to take responsibility for the bags, which she did, of course. As her father talked to the two drivers, Ally draped two or three of the bags over her arm and tried not to think about how they were weighing her down.

She slipped the key into the lock, ignoring the pain in her arms, and pushed the door open with her free hand.

The first glimpse of her new house was nothing special - it was certainly bigger than her old apartment - but she'd seen pictures of the house she was moving into for over a month, now. She knew what it looked like. Kitchen and living room in front, big bedroom and pantry to either side of her, smaller bedrooms down the hall to the left.

Ally dropped the three bags on the counter in the kitchen, sorting them with Lester's pile on the floor; along with her carry-on, Ally made piles of "clothes, electronics, boy stuff, girl stuff". If she had the time, she could've even probably sorted them by color.

She walked over to the window and leaned out, letting the Florida air in once again; she was surprised it wasn't storming already. She knew that Florida was famous for their freak hit-and-run storms every day. Her dad was conversing with the delivery men, helping them clean out the truck; she knew it would be a while before he walked in with any furniture. If their chairs were in the house, Ally probably could have sat down and watched TV, but she didn't really feel like sitting on the bare hardwood floor after sitting in her dad's old smelly van for two hours.

The front door opened and closed so suddenly that Ally almost didn't realize it. A second late, Ally whipped her head around to find a short, plump girl, looking about her age, if not a little older.

"Hi!" the girl waved, holding her hand out. "I'm Trish. I live two doors down. My mother saw you walking in and told me to say hello," the girl, evidently named Trish, rolled her eyes. Ally thought her comment was a bit rude, uncouth, and presumptuous for just speaking her mind like that, but with one simple sentence, Ally could already tell what her neighbor would be like. She hoped to God she was home schooled so she wouldn't have to ride the bus with her.

"I'm Ally," she returned, shaking Trish's hand. "I just moved here. I'm from New York."

"I couldn't tell, from that oh-so-thick accent of yours," Trish joked, making Ally want to recoil and cover her mouth. She never once thought she had an accent to other people, from other states. Seeing how distraught Ally was over that fact, Trish laughed and shook her head. "Don't worry, it's not that obvious. I just knew you were from New York from your license plate! Do you want to come explore the neighborhood with me?"

"I don't know..." Ally's insecure, anxious, and nervous side shone through with shining colors once again. "Would you be willing to?"

"Ally - I don't know if that's your full name or not, but whatever - would I not be willing to show you around the neighborhood if I asked you? Come on now, have some sense. You can finish unpacking later; I'll even help you! Of course, that's if I get paid..." she muttered the last part, but Ally caught it and raised her eyebrows in suspicion.

"I'm kidding!" Trish exclaimed, but she didn't seem like she was kidding the first time. Ally_ really_ hoped that Trish wouldn't end up being her best friend.

As Ally walked out of her new house, being careful with the door, she waved goodbye to her dad, who looked quite happy that she had already made a friend two minutes into living in Florida. Ally, forever on guard, couldn't help but think that Trish was going to lead her to her death; but, luckily enough, all she wanted to do was show her around the street she was currently residing on.

At first, they walked right. Trish introduced her to the Jacksons, Callinas, Bukators, Lenways, Hewletts, Delamaters, so on and so forth.

Then they walked left; when they passed Ally Dawson's house, Trish pointed to the blue one beside the green, and announced, "That's the Moon residence. They only have one son, named Austin." It was the standard introduction for every house they passed, but right next to Austin, two doors down from Ally, lived Trish.

She didn't speak much about Austin, but Ally had no idea that he was the person she'd be kissing in three days time — unintentionally, of course.


End file.
